


Aurous and Mason's Happy Fun Field Trip

by TGP



Series: So It's Going [4]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Helmstrolls, Mason needs some xanax, Meeting the Parents, Not a canon character to be seen yet, oodles of OCs - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-05 12:49:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16810957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TGP/pseuds/TGP
Summary: Aurous the Helmstroll has a lot to experience in this world. Mason means to give her anything she asks for.And maybe Jermaine won't have a heart attack before all the dust settles.





	Aurous and Mason's Happy Fun Field Trip

**Author's Note:**

> Slow start but XD planning on more. This is not planned to be very long but I think we all know how terrible I am at any sort of word count estimates.

They have to wait over a year for the Helmsman maintenance crew to arrive. They're all older, Softouch's size or more, with blue markings on most of their uniforms. In the mix are two or three other colors, but they mostly defer to the blues. The only semi-adult that will get within ten feet of them is Cadet Hoyali, who they treat like the Troll equivalent of a little sister to her utter disgust. They're not all as stuck up as her, but it's a close thing. 

Mason doesn't like any of them but if this is what it takes to get Aurous out of the goddamn Helmsblock, he is all for it. 

"You pace now," Cadet Drasen says, the words just slightly off in her mouth around her crazy teeth. She hasn't figured out how to get them working right just yet. Mason feels for her, he really does, and it's nice that most of the semi-adults are trying to get some English down since it's looking like they're here for the long haul. Drasen in particular is fully willing to try chatting up humans, even if Hoyali is about the only one of them that’s really managing a firm grasp of the grammar.

"Yeah, well. Wouldn't you?" he mutters with less charitable thoughts and keeps pacing. He hears that one baby troll's voice, the sweaty one, and wishes he'd picked up more Alternian to understand what's going on. Hoyali doesn't have the technical vocabulary and Drasen doesn't understand it enough to explain _or_ have the vocabulary. It just makes everything more frustrating anytime he hears clang or bang rattle through the ship. They'd refused to let him stay in the Helmsblock and the room is soundproof enough that he can't hear a damn thing through the door. Aurous was serious enough when they decided to try this that Mason thinks he's losing years of his life with every minute that passes without the assurance that she's okay.

As Mason continues pacing, Drasen suddenly straightens into the odd Troll attention a second before he hears familiar footsteps coming towards them. He looks up, hoping it might be- and then relaxes all over to see Ironclaw's familiar face. There is a certain pensiveness in the slant of Ironclaw's mouth but he still stops and lets Mason approach him. 

"Lt. Mason," he greets with a solemn nod.

"Yeah, hey. Hi. Sorry, I'm..."

"It is surprising not, your nervousness," Ironclaw says, setting one clawed hand on Mason's forearm. "I will advise you after I speak with the mechanics."

It's not the right term for them, doesn't nearly cover what they must have to know to deal with such a mix of tech and organics, but it's understandable enough. Mason lets out a breath he hadn't quite realized he was holding. "Thanks."

Another nod and then Ironclaw turns away to approach the door to the Helmsblock. He speaks slowly enough that Mason picks up a word here and there but he's not Sarah; he can't fucking understand all the clicks or subvocals that can turn one word into twenty others. There's a pause and then the door opens enough to admit him and let some very unsettling squelching sounds come out. Before it closes, Mason catches a glimpse of bright gold he knows is blood and his chest goes tight as his entire body tightens up in the effort to keep him from tearing his way back inside there. The only reason he doesn't is because she asked him to stay out and he’s terrified he might ruin everything if he doesn’t listen.

It's been almost a year and a half, and Mason is so used to being with her or hearing her over his specialized ear piece that the suddenly deafening silence is a physical ache. If his friends from college saw him now, they'd probably call him whipped. Mason doesn't care. They don't get it. He keeps pacing.

“How often- what's the success rate of this procedure? Do you know?” Mason asks and there is a heavy enough pause that he comes to a stop as he turns to stare at Drasen. There’s a certain amount of trepidation there and his heart falls more and more with every second.

“100%,” she says finally. He hears the ‘but’ she doesn’t voice and isn’t sure what it means.

As they stare at each other, Mason turns over why that is until, “How _often_ is this done?”

“It…” Drasen shifts from one foot to the other a few times, her fingers twisting the edge of her tunic. “Once.”

Once. It had only been done _once_. Successfully, but… Mason stares at the floor. They’d told him it was meant to be permanent, the installation. He _knew_ that. But still… 

“I should be in there,” he whispers and Drasen jerks with a quick denial even as Mason twists on his heel and marches for the door. She grabs his arm and he’s quick to shake her off. “Don’t you start-”

“Do not!” Drasen grabs him again, dragging him back, and Mason forgot just how much stronger some of these trolls are as she keeps hold while he tries to buck her off. She can’t be careful about her claws but a few bloody scratches aren’t nearly enough to dissuade him. They’re superficial, nothing to worry about, so he doesn’t. It’s not until she sweeps his legs and ends up sitting on him that Mason really starts to understand she’s not going to let him have his way. Drasen’s babbling awkward apologies while trying to sop up the blood down his arm with her tunic like any of this is actually her fault. She’d probably apologize for her own existence if he let her.

He’s not actually mad at her but he can’t quite make himself forgive her for not letting him go on. When he’s been still long enough, Drasen gets off and helps him up to his feet.

“Stay,” she says, tugging him again towards the little waiting area the Trolls had set up for him when all this started. He feels so very _useless_ out here but sinks down into the seat because staying standing just doesn’t seem worth it. What if something goes wrong? What if she _dies?_ He wouldn’t even know it until it was over. 

Burying his head in his hands, he works at dragging back what semblance of self control he’s ever had because freaking out like this is something a kid does and he hasn’t been one in a while. Drasen wisely keeps quiet but she remains standing beside his chair in quiet solidarity. Mason doesn’t know if she’s got a palemate back home but he figures she’d probably be better at it than he is right now. 

How long before there’s any change, he doesn’t know. Long enough that he’s burned out most of the hopeless worry and instead is just… waiting. He sags in his seat, staring at the door, and then startles when it opens. Scrambling to his feet, he starts for it as Ironclaw comes out and tells him it's going well but, like the others, he can't quite explain it all. He just says that there haven't been any problems. It's a slim comfort. He wonders if they'd tell him otherwise, if otherwise became reality. He starts pacing again.

At some point, it's been hours and Mason sits on the floor with his back up against the door, staring at his phone. The messaging app she and Sollux wrote together stares back at him with no updates, no signs of life. He finds a stupid cat picture with 'HANG IN THERE' written at the bottom and sends it to her, but there's no response. Well, when this is over and she checks, she'll probably laugh. That's nice to think about. Mason sighs heavily and presses his forehead down against the screen. 

It feels like when Grandma Mason died, back before he left to put on a uniform. Things had been touch and go for weeks and he'd felt like he was living in the Twilight Zone for how real it didn't feel. When it came down to it, she'd been rushed into another area of the hospital and four hours later, the doctor came to tell them she was gone. 

Closing his eyes, Mason tells himself that everything is fine. He's just overreacting, the mechanics know what they're doing, Aurous is too stubborn to leave him. It’s gonna be okay. He just has to be patient.

Mason’s not sure how long it takes. At some point, Cadet Raftin brings a meal that Mason just barely picks at. He takes Drasen’s place so she can go do something else. Raftin has even more problems speaking English than Drasen does, on account of the teeth, but he understands it better. He _has_ figured out the right concern noises, though. Mason offers him a tight smile but he really doesn’t want to talk about it. He stares at his hand and then his phone and then his feet.

His phone suddenly buzzes with an incoming call and Mason nearly drops it. He grabs it up and answers without even looking to see who it is, giving a hurried, "Mason."

"Abe, you sound awful," his mother says and Mason is surprised by the laugh it shocks out of him. 

"Hi to you, too." And just like that, a little of the weight comes right off. He doesn't know how Mom does that. 

"I was just thinking of you and it's been so long since you last called," she says because she knows how to twist the knife gently, but still twist it. "How is all the alien stuff going?"

_Alien stuff_. Pft. "Fine. It's fine. Just... got a friend in surgery."

"Are they going to be okay?"

"Yeah, she... There're specialists. She's gonna be fine."

He doesn't feel convinced of that and she catches it easily. He can almost see the unhappy twist of her mouth and her fingers curling in the spiraling cord of her antique house phone. "From your team?"

"Uh. She..." How did he explain this. Mom knows the aliens exist because everyone does now; she just doesn't know how deep in the shit he really is. "No. She's... not from around here."

There's a long pause. Then, "Alien?"

"It... Yeah. Yeah, she is." He's not really supposed to say stuff like that to people outside the UN folks, but it's not like he thinks his mom will go tell anyone other than her knitting circle, who might gossip like crazy between each other but never outside. Besides, he'd been forced to retire so he figures it's his due to tell his mom about his goddamn alien girlfriend. Not that Mom knows that's what's going on. "I talked about her before. Aurous?"

"Oh! Yes, of course. I just didn't realize... And she's not doing well, oh no," and the true concern is dripping off every word even as Mason feels guilty about not telling her what Aurous was before this, or even what she really means to him. "How long has she been under?"

"Couple hours, I think. What time is it?"

"Just after dinner. Abe, when's the last time you ate?"

Uh. Long enough that he has no idea. Dinner, though. Counting the time difference… Jesus, he’s probably been sitting here close to sixteen hours now. No wonder he feels like ten miles of bad road.

Thankfully, he's saved from admitting that when the door behind him opens and he almost falls flat on his back. Mason gets to his feet quickly and jerks out of the way as two of the mechanics stare down at him with haughty disdain as another guides out a floating cot and-

"Mom, I'm gonna have to call you back," he says quickly, hanging up right after, and then he's immediately at her side. Aurous isn’t conscious and there's bright gold blood soaked into her clothing and hair, but her chest rises and falls the way it's supposed to and he is just so goddamn relieved. What shocks him stupid and really shouldn't is that she has _limbs_. They're long and thin like her body but he's pretty sure he'll still be taller when she stands. There's no visible atrophy like he'd imagine but weird cuts all over her bleed sluggishly out instead of being bandaged, which worries him even though Mason knows the Trolls don’t really have to think about infection as far as the biologists can tell- He realizes abruptly those must have been where she'd been plugged in. He shivers a little, fighting sudden nausea, and follows behind the mechanics as they float her to the block they'd readied for her before all this started. None of the mechanics seem surprised by his need to stay near her. They must have figured out about the whole moirail thing.

A year in and he still finds it surprising how unsurprised the Trolls can be by things. 

The mechanics talk amongst themselves but none of them speak English and Mason doesn't give enough shits to parse out any Alternian, not when he's dragging up a chair by her bed and accepting a cleaning cloth and basin of what looks and doesn't smell like water. Trolls are weird. Ironclaw hadn't even brought a medic with him and the mechanics don't seem apt to it either, but then again... These fuckers could easily live through losing a limb even before they cauterize the stump, so maybe they just didn't figure it was important. In any case, he's kind of relieved as they file out and leave the two of them alone. 

He doesn't know where to start and he's afraid of hurting her but Mason dutifully picks up one hand he'd never touched before and starts at his task. Whatever they gave him works well, cutting through the thick sludge Trolls call blood so he can wipe it away. It's not like she can go to 'coon like this and he figures she won't sleep well on the cot since Trolls didn't, like, do that outside of sex. But...

Once he's gotten her cleaned up and dressed in a crisp, fresh uniform with her color on it that Ironclaw had provided, he's hesitant to leave. She probably won't wake up for a while and he's maybe being kind of creepy clingy or something, but... Mason's man enough to admit when he needs something and right now, that something is to climb up on the cot with her and cradle her body to his as she sleeps. She's smaller than he'd thought in some ways, bigger in others, and it's so weird to suddenly have a whole body to hold (he will only admit to cuddling on pain of death).

He doesn't really rest all that well but on the bright side, he gets to glare bloody murder at Softouch when she peeks in and she only giggles before leaving them alone. Small victories. 

\-----

Mason didn't mean to fall asleep but when he opens his eyes, he finds himself alone. It takes a moment for him to figure out why that bothers him so much and then he's jerking up to his feet, stumbling over a stuffed sloth laying in the middle of the floor and barely keeping himself from taking a nosedive.

Where- They wouldn't have just let her leave- She-

"She's fine," he tells himself as he rakes his fingers back through his hair. "You're being a dumbass and she's gonna call you on it later."

Aurous had probably just gone with Ironclaw or to the mess. With as resilient as Trolls could be, Mason doesn't doubt she could probably get to either under her own power- but she hadn't walked in almost two years. Hadn't stood. Hadn't had to bear any of her weight-

He's out the door and on his way through the halls before he realizes he's made that decision. Great. Now there's more shit for her to pick on him about. (He won't admit it but that's one of the things he loves most about her.)

The halls are mostly empty, which is usual. No new crew had come in with the mechanics' ship, as per UN request in regards to keeping the Troll population on Earth to a minimum for now, so the semi-adults are pretty sparing around the whole place. A few humans came and went during very specific times but Mason's pretty sure none of them are on board right now. Not with the delicate condition the ship's Helmsman, and by proxy the ship itself, is in. Ironclaw's pretty trusting, but he's not _stupid_. The linguists might be around, though. He and Sarah seem pretty chummy. Maybe it's an age thing. Sarah's not ancient like him, but she's probably the closest to Ironclaw's mental age than anyone else. 

(Did that make Ironclaw the dude version of a cougar? He'll have to confer with his terrible girlfriend. There's probably an awful Troll word for it that he can mention casually just to see his eye twitch. Mason likes Ironclaw a lot but that doesn't mean pranking the guy isn't fun.)

The door to the Helmsblock is open- Of course it is. Aurous isn't in there. He blinks dumbly through the doorway to the demolished remains of her column. Two of the mechanics are working on piecing things together is esoteric ways Mason has little want to understand but they pay him no mind. He’s stuck for a few seconds because he hadn't really meant to come here but he's just so used to being here when he's at all distressed- which he's not. He is cool as a cucumber. Yup. That's him, right there. So chill.

Mason runs his hand down his face and is very glad no one just heard that. He'd never live it down.

Now that his brain appears to be working, Mason twists on his heel and almost smashes into Cadet Talvar. He jerks back, stumbling over his feet, and she cackles, showing every one of her ridiculously sharp teeth. 

"Uh, hi?" he says and she just grins wide because she's a creepy asshole. Talvar is shorter and wider than Softouch, nowhere near as dangerous, and is way more interested in the baby Trolls than humans, but Mason's been giving her as wide a berth as he can. He can smell the crazy coming off her even without anyone warning him. 

"You feel how?" she asks slowly like every word is taffy she's trying to pull and Mason kind of wishes she slurred her words like some of the others but Talvar's teeth are pretty even and not too big for her mouth. She could at least have been stuck with Orc tusks like Cadet Raftin.

"None of your damn business."

Talvar snickers with another creepy grin like the creepy creepster she is before tottering off. She moves like a spider that's had half the legs ripped off by a ten year old budding psychopath. He kind of wishes they'd pulled the other ones off, too. Fucking creep. Why couldn't Softouch have taken her out instead of Plenno?

He should probably not be considering that. Humans are supposed to be less bloodthirsty than Trolls. Maybe Aurous is a bad influence.

Shaking his head, Mason steers himself on towards the mess like he'd intended. There, he sees the most beautiful sight in all his life: his terrible girlfriend shoving Cadet Oustea's face into a plate of grubloaf. She cackles loud enough he'd probably have heard her in the halls had he not already been in the doorway, happy and amused like he always prefers.

She's okay and he is so dumb for thinking she might somehow not be. This Troll's a battleship, she keeps reminding him. He is _not_ going to cry with relief at seeing her so animated.

"Oh, hey soldier boy!" she says with a shit eating grin when she spots him. Her eyes are a little tired and her hands shake around the cup held in both, but she's bright and awake and he's so goddamn relieved. 

"You know I was discharged ages ago," he says, sliding into a seat next to her so he can brush his arm against her like the desperate idiot he is. "How could you, my own moirail, remind me of such trauma?"

She snickers and then leans into him, butting her head against his shoulder affectionately. Oustea looks disgusted with both of them and Mason might not know the clicks and growls but he gets the general gist of it, especially when it just makes Aurous grin more. Shaking his head, Oustea pushes himself up with a grunt Mason would expect from a much older guy and then storms off like he's been intensely insulted.

"Does the stick ever come out of his ass?" Mason asks idly as he starts petting through Aurous hair, finding his heart rate slowing as the familiar rumbling purr starts in her chest.

"Nooooo, he lived by _blue bloods_ ," she says like it means anything to him, but then he remembers about Hoyali and the mechanics and thinks he understands. Good to know that's apparently a thing for their... What was it. Blood caste? He'll figure it out later. So far, he's managed not to ask questions he really doesn't care much about. Yui can handle all of that, thank you very much.

"How unfortunate that it rubbed of on him."

Aurous giggles and then Mason nearly jumps through the roof when his phone goes off. He almost shuts it off but realizes who's calling. 

"Hey, Mom," he says, a little guilty he hadn't called her already. He didn't even check to see how many messages he had.

"Abraham Lincoln Mason," Mom grounds out low and Mason winces as Aurous gives the phone a curious glance. "You cut off a call like that and then _don't check back in?!_ "

"Hey, yeah, uh. Sorry." He's pretty sure he's blushing. Somehow, he's managed to keep Aurous from seeing this particular side of his mother. (Or any, really. Keeping them apart has kind of been an effort.) "It was kind of... I mean. Sorry, Mom."

Mom sighs and that's even worse because it means she's _disappointed_. The pain is real.

"It's all right." It isn't. He's going to pay for this eventually, he just knows it. "I know you're very busy with all the aliens and such. How's your friend?"

"Very well!" Aurous pipes up and Mason winces again.

"This is a private conversation," he hisses at her and Aurous blinks, brows lifting a moment before a familiar mischievousness passes over her face. _Oh no_.

"Is that your maternal progenitor?" Aurous asks slyly as if she doesn't know perfectly well what the right word is.

"Is that an alien?" Mom asks with exaggerated normalcy as if she doesn't regularly peek into all of his personal business.

He can never let them meet but Mason isn't sure he'd be able to prevent it at this point.

\----

Turns out he can't. Not only do his mother and Aurous get on like a house on fire after they badger him into putting the phone on speaker, somehow he gets roped into promising a road trip to go see her. He's at least saved by not setting a solid date because he has to check in with Jermaine first to get a final med check before he can leave the premises. 

Mom's threatening to fly out to Switzerland and set up a tent outside their outer wall if he doesn't give her some solid plan and he absolutely believes she would. How his dad might feel about everything, Mason's got no idea. He's pretty reserved at the best of times. The idea of setting Aurous on him sounds both hilarious and also dangerous. The cringe is strong.

"Are you insane?" Jermaine asks in a perfectly even tone that means he's pissed. He was pissed before Mason got there. Wonder if he got in a fight with the missus - either of them. Mason's got all the deets on that particular situation even if everyone involved is discreet enough that no one has actually seen anything incriminating.

"Look at it like a way to expand Troll/Human relations with a general public field test." It sounded good in his head but Jermaine continues to glare at him. 

"Absolutely not."

"Sir, you haven't met my mother. I don't think there's a way to stop this from happening without arresting her, and I'm not sure that'd do it either."

Jermaine sighs and reaches up to rub his temples. This isn't the craziest thing Mason's done by far, but he can see why it'd be a bit upsetting to the uninitiated. 

"I cannot approve any of the Trolls leaving the premises without full UN oversight," Jermaine says finally and raises a hand to stop Mason's immediate objection. "However, I will approve a short visit _in_ the complex. Bring me exact dates and plane schedules for your parents. Be sure to warn them that there will be a great deal of paperwork before they can see anything, including non-disclosures, as well as a security sweep of themselves and anything else they want to bring inside."

That is honestly better than Mason expected. He thanks Jermaine profusely for helping him keep his mother from getting arrested for trespassing (lack of permission had never stopped her before when she got her mind set on something) and then heads out of the office only to slow to a stop right outside the door.

Shit. He'd actually been kind of banking on Jermaine giving him the excuse he needed to keep Mom and Aurous from meeting in person. He just couldn't stop himself from giving a good fight. _Damn it!_ Aurous knows as soon as Mason gets back to her block and she cackles after he flops himself down into the soft pile of plush dogs and hyenas he'd gotten her when he found out what her lusus had been while looking through stupid animal pictures on the internet. He still maybe doesn't quite understand the whole lusus thing but she'd been so pleased at the dozens of soft toys he piled up around her column that he figured it didn't matter. If anything, it gave him something concrete to do for her while she was stationary in the Helmsblock. Now she gets to enjoy them and by the way she'd burrowed down in the few dozenhe'd collected so far, he'd say it's a successful endeavor. The whole pile thing seems like an okay deal.

"How much taller is she than you?" Aurous asks curiously, nudging a sloth under her chin. 

"She's not. She's kinda short."

"Huh. She sounded much bigger."

Mason laughs as he tugs a soft fleece blanket over the both of them. It's nice, getting that kind of close intimacy, and he's pretty sure there won't be much of it once his mother arrives. She'd never been the type to sew him up in a sheet or anything but Mom had certain ideas about marriage and sex and all that, and he's not really sure he'll be able to get the point across to her that it is totally not a concern in the least. To be perfectly honest, sex hadn't really _ever_ been a concern for him except on surprise circumstances. He's not sure what to think about the luck of finding a partner that fulfills him and doesn't make any kind of demands in that arena. It's nice. Makes his terrible track record of relationships weigh a bit on him, makes him worry he'll fuck this up somehow, but... Maybe not. 

"She's got a big personality," he says after a while and Aurous scoots across the pile to fit herself against his chest. He starts petting her hair without even being prompted. 

"A good lusus. You survived." Aurous had the entire internet in her brain when connected to the ship and still doesn't quite understand human child rearing practices. It's as alien a concept to her as being raised by a semi-sentient animal is to him. 

"Yeah, I guess so. Don't be surprised if she starts asking when I'm going to make an honest woman out of you."

Aurous laughs into his chest with a true delight that warms him right up, even if he's still really unsure of the future. Mason slides his arms tighter around her, burying his face against her throat for several moments. She's a good sport about it, pets his hair and coos comfortingly at him until he loosens up. 

"I can't believe I never asked but... Do Trolls do, like, marriage?" It's probably kind of off the wall random, but... "Like, legal binding of-"

"I know what marriage is. I downloaded the internet," she chides him gently, her grin easy to hear in her voice to soothe the sting. "I don't understand why it's necessary! But I will conform to your human sensibilities if it comes up."

He's relieved to hear it because, "She's prolly gonna ride that train pretty hard. Mom's always been kind of disappointed I haven't gotten married yet. I keep trying to remind her I'm twenty-five, not forty."

Aurous pauses a moment and then says, "You're twenty-five human years?"

"Yeah." How did that never come up before? Shit. "Is... that a problem?"

"Hm. No."

"How old are you?"

"Eighteen sweeps." At the way he pulls his head up to give her a blank stare, she giggles a little and gives him a messy smooch on his cheek. "Thirty-nine human years."

Mason blinks a little. He knows that Trolls do it a little different, longer lifespans, and he's got the more vague idea of the relative amounts of time they tend to live depending on color (enough to know Ironclaw is really fucking old), but with as irreverent as Aurous acts, he hadn't ever really thought she was _older_ than him. Hell, he'd been vaguely concerned about _cradle robbing_ but Ironclaw gave him with most confused look that one time he asked if Aurous was culturally an adult (Mason's been paying attention to the lectures, he knows how different that can be!) Apparently, Helmsmen are only installed after second molt which meant they were all adults but how the hell was he supposed to know? So he knows she's an adult, but... 

"Is that a problem?" she asks a little more quietly and he's quick to give her a firm squeeze that has her giggling again.

"No, but I might have to call you Mrs. Robinson." She'll look it up later and find him hilarious. 

\----

When Esther Mason steps off the plane with her husband in tow, she's met with a bunch of soldiers that treat her as if she's some kind of visiting royal. It's kind of fun and she shares an amused look with Jacob, who's far more apprehensive than he needs to be, poor thing. The soldiers pick up their luggage and lead them out to a ridiculous car that's far too big for them and the one soldier that climbs in with them. He doesn't speak English, so Esther tugs at her half remembered French and finds match enough that they can fumble their way through a very basic conversation (he only speaks as much French as she does). It's a pleasant enough way to distract from the set of forms she and Jacob have to fill out on their their trip out to Alien Central.

Esther is sure that's not what they call it but Abe has led her on making true things sound fake before. She's not about to give him the satisfaction of tricking her this time, terrible child. 

When they're close enough to finally see it, Esther's plastered to the window. It's mostly a huge wall with a few guard towers, but over the edge of it she sees a tall red structure with spikes that definitely isn't human architecture. Not when this is a government thing. The bright color has her worry a little, despite Abe's reassurance that everyone is very safe. 

They get to a gate where one guard checks their passports, IDs, and the entry permits they'd been sent. Hand held metal detectors, breathalyzer… She’s starting to wonder where exactly they think she’s come from. They also have both stand in front of camera as they wait for word back over the phone before they begin on another stack of papers including an NDA that she wants to read in detail but it's not like she can get in without signing. The guards wave the whole group through after and she’s about half sure they’re walking through some kind of body scanner on the way in. 

Esther is impressed by the professionalism of it all even if it takes too long and annoys her sensibilities. She can still appreciate it anyway. If it keeps her baby safe while he serves his country on the front line of First Contact, she's fine with a little inconvenience.

Inside the walls is a wide stretch of well kept green with roads wrapping through it to the main complex and... the alien ship. She has to stop, staring openly because she hadn't realized it was so big. Pictures did no justice whatsoever. The ship looks like a weapon, all hard edges and danger, and she can't help the way her heart beats a little faster looking at it. There's another shape just past it, bony white and pitch, but it's nothing in the face of the red one. The sheer size of it is bad enough but all the _spikes_...

It takes Jacob twining his fingers through hers to snap her out of it and she lets herself be led towards the no nonsense building that apparently houses the UN workers handling everything. Makes sense, considering how boring it looks. 

They haven't even gotten to the door when it opens and _he_ steps through. The man stops and gives her a look. Were he human, she might think it was curiosity.

The alien looks like a man, not much taller than her but far more solid. His skin is pitch black, catching light like a matte painting. There is a fang on one side of his incredibly human like mouth, a solid jaw line that’s just this side of off normal. His eyes are different, almost glowing pools of red and green, and then there are _horns_. Abe hadn't warned her about horns. They barely look real with that coloring but closer inspection shows very natural looking ridging like built up keratin. After a moment of staring back at her, the alien nods his head politely and then turns to follow a path on towards the red ship with a gait that would be entirely normal if it weren’t for the odd lack of roll in his hips with each step, like he’s put together differently in the pelvis. Esther can't help watching him until she's shuffled on inside.

That was an alien. She'd seen an alien. When she gets over the shock, she's going to hold that over Vera Helen's head _forever_. See her just try and one up that one in the next homeowners association meeting.

To be honest, Esther's kind of relieved when they get taken to meeting room to finish signing the stacks of paper they'd begun at the gate. It's soothing to do something normal. Seeing her first alien had been kind of anticlimactic but it still got her heart pounding. She's glad there are still things in the universe to surprise her. 

The paperwork gets whisked away and leaves them to their lonesome. Esther sits back with Jacob and just marvels at it all. He takes her hand again, rubbing over the back with his thumb.

"Did you ever think we'd meet aliens in our lifetime?" he asks, watching the door like she is.

"Are you kidding me? I didn't actually believe any _existed_."

His lips twitch up on one side and she leans over, resting her head against his shoulder. The quiet and stillness is nice after all the hustling they'd had to do. 

"You know his girlfriend? Aurous?" Esther says and Jacob nods his agreement. "You know she's one of them?"

Jacob's thoughtfully silent for a little while before murmuring out, "Well. At least she's not Catholic."

Esther's laughter can surely be heard out in the hall but she absolutely does not care. 


End file.
